I want to wish you a very belated MERRY CHRISTMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR! (better late than never...right?? )

I hope you all enjoyed the holidays. We had a great time - very busy - but nice. It was strange to spend Christmas Eve in our house, just ourselves, but good as well. I think my mom & dad felt the same LOL. We went and visited some family on Christmas after we opened our gifts from each other (to see BabyE etc) and then my parents came over for our Italian Feast We made homemade minestrone soup to start, then had homemade meatballs & spaghetti (delicious! the sauce was sooo tasty!!) with homemade garlic bread. For dessert, we made 2 things: Italian ice cream cake (possibly the most lovely thing I have ever tasted!! LOL) and limoncello & white chocolate mousse. We had never made any of these things before (apart from the bread), so were really hoping they worked - and I think they did!

Then between Christmas & New Year, we went out with friends, seen some more family & had to work for a couple days. At New Year, we went to our friends for the bells on NYE, and then New Years night, went to our other friends house for some drinks & a chat. Was really good fun!

And we were back at work yesterday Nooooooo! But at least, it was only a 2 day week as it's now the weekend!! Yay!

By the way, I just wanted to let everyone know that The Heir has been sent to the school libraries people. If they say yes, not only will it mean I've already sold 3000 copies, it means they'll probably pick up the other two books in the series as well. So if you'd like to send up some prayers and good thoughts I'd appreciate it!

I've been busy the past few days-working and getting my house in order bit by bit. I went and hung out with my mom tonight which is always fun..this weekend looks to be quiet which is nice, I hope to get more cleaning and studying done.

Lynne- that is soo exciting about your book- when will you hear about the libraries? Good to see you found someone to link to!

Jaclyn- your holidays sound fun a good mix of relaxing and socialization! And that dinner makes my mouth water-yum!

Song- I was majorly pms-ing on NYE that and I feel quite awkward being the only couple who doesn't have a baby at these family functions..and I'm all...I have a dog....

For those of you not on Facebook, Karena and I have been discussing exactly how they're going to manage filming The Rover. Apparently, Rob flies out here on Tuesday, and we are in the middle of a countrywide heatwave. The temperatures where he is likely to be filming will be higher than normal (and they're normally pretty high at this time of year). There have been some temperatures of 120 degrees in that area lately. It will be interesting to see how they manage it.

Sarah - I'm not sure when we'll hear. I'll let you know as soon as I do.

Sleep experiment today was a success--I was awake and alert during work and and if I play things right, I'll have more time during the day to play around before/after work. So today was a great day. Back's still a bit screwed up, but not that bad, and I'm happy that the cold weather will be going away for a while next week--I can't believe that I'm jumping up and down that for a couple of days next week it's supposed to be above 40, but after it being like 5-10 degrees at night, it's a huge improvement

Also, with news or Rob reportedly going to Australia next week to start production for The Rover and the heat wave down there, I'll bet that most of us who lived in the American Mid West (like myself--and I know plenty of you here remember what I'm talking about ) remember how hot it got during the summer. It's at best gonna be similar to that. In fact, if anything, it's supposed to be hotter. I don't think that Rob really experienced anything like this in the UK or LA, and I hope that he'll take every precaution possible. One thing that might help him and the rest of the cast/crew is that Rover's setting is supposed to be in the desert. At least by being dry, the humidity won't be a factor like it was where I was at last summer, though that might not help a ton with as hot as I read it's supposed to be.

Of course, that's why most Aus/NZ based sporting events usually take place during our summer/their winter, be it football/soccer or the V8 Supercar series and everything in between. But here, as I've said, I'm almost jumping up and down that next week the temps for a few days will be above 40!

I'll be up a little longer before I bring in some wood and play on the PS2 for a while before I go back to bed.

Hi all! We took the kids and one of Bug's friends to a play gym yesterday afternoon and to McDonalds for dinner and boy did they have fun! Last real day of vacation...now it's the weekend and then they go back to school on Monday and I have to work.

Lynne, is Little Man back on his regular schedule? When do you hear about the book??

Sean, glad your sleeping schedule is working out for you. It's always hard to start a new routine.Jaclyn, so good to see you! Whether you are late or not! And your dinner sounded lovely...I love spaghetti.

Sarah, fur-babies are kids, too!! But I know what you mean. Do you have a large family?

We have church at our place this morning, although it's fairly low key. We'll just be having something to eat and a chat.

Rochelle has finally sent me the corrections for The Crown, book two in my series, so now I've got to get cracking on the changes for that. I hope I can see the way to do it, because she's a bit vague about how the book should start herself! I'll do my best to get it right.

Sean - the desert over here can be a killer, though. I really hope they're going to be extra careful about how they film this thing.

Songbird - Little Man doesn't go back to school until January 29! This fact will make working on my second novel quite difficult, but I hope I'll manage. I don't know when I'll hear from the school library system about The Heir. I'll just have to wait and see.

Well despite my attempts, I feel like I caught Jason's cold so I'm snuggled up with a bunch of blankets, watching football with him and alternating between reading and playing games on my phone. The Complete Film Archive book came in from the library and it's fascinating! Definitely going to buy it at some point

Song- no I'm from a very small family..I'm an Air Force brat so we were transferred far away from our extended family most of my life. I don't mind it...so Jason's big extended family gatherings are different to me! I agree that dogs are like fur babies but there's so only so many stories I can tell before people look at me weird!!

Lynne- wow, that's a long break for little man, is that his entire summer vacation?

Lynne: At least in the desert, there's no humidity. In the American South West, the heat index ("feels like" temp) is cooler than the outside air because there's no humidity to inhibit evaporation and hold in heat. However, at 120, I don't know if that'll make a helluva lot of difference. I know that here last summer that it was insanely hot, in part because of humidity that sometimes made it feel 10-15 degrees hotter than it was, and that's what harms people and occasionally causes deaths during heat waves here.

Everyone: A couple more cold days, and then it'll be in the mid 50s by next Saturday! I'll try and work on some fan fic this morning before I got to bed and play on the PS2 after I get done here and bring in some wood. And my back ache's gone now BTW

As far as my fan fic, I'm almost done with chapter 3 (I think that some of you will like the ending), and I have chapter 4 planned out. It'll be the first to feature the POV of a character from Guyver, and I think that some of you will think that she's (yes, I typed she) pretty cool, in that she has multiple facets to her, has quite a backstory, and she shows that powerful things come in small packages--and yes, even for a girl, she's small. Not Alice small, but she'll look like a midget compared to her husband and other characters. I can give some biographical info about her if anyone's curious, and it won't feature any major spoilers as far as story plot aside from bio information.